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Let me be the first to comment on the fact that eBay is moving away from "percentage of sales" commissions and new user signup bonuses to click quality based PPC model. (e.g. adsense or shopping.com) Full details here:

There was a reason I stopped displaying Shopping.com links. My traffic was of a high enough quality that I ALWAYS made more money via percentage of sale. This change sounds horrible! Losing ACRU's is a big blow.

Merchants, any data you provide to Google Shopping should also be in your affiliate network datafeed. More data means more sales!

I have a feeling that the CPC rate they'll pay for quality traffic will be comparable to what the good affiliates are currently making.

You may be right, we will see. I'm very glad that I run my iPhone application under a different account (due to special EPN terms required). The PPC quality score on my iPhone app is going to be much lower compared to my price comparison website.

Affiliates will think twice about throwing new traffic sources into the mix, given the damage it could do to your quality score.

Merchants, any data you provide to Google Shopping should also be in your affiliate network datafeed. More data means more sales!

This is both horrible and stupid. And I guarantee you'll be getting less that you did because I don't think they would implement something where they would be paying more out to affiliates. There is a reason many merchants got away from paying per click years ago, many years ago. It's going to be a fraud feast. At least with the current structure they're paying for actual sales and actual leads, performance. Now they're going backwards. I wish they would just leave shit alone and stop implementing all these major changes all the time.

And I guarantee you'll be getting less that you did because I don't think they would implement something where they would be paying more out to affiliates.

I anticipate lots of make-good's after the fact as they iron out their bugs. Expect e-mails like, "an internal change to our quality score algorithm has resulted in some publishers getting a lower than justified QPC score. This problem affected a small number of publishers and a "make-good" has now been posted to the affected accounts".

Merchants, any data you provide to Google Shopping should also be in your affiliate network datafeed. More data means more sales!

I anticipate lots of make-good's after the fact as they iron out their bugs. Expect e-mails like, "an internal change to our quality score algorithm has resulted in some publishers getting a lower than justified QPC score. This problem affected a small number of publishers and a "make-good" has now been posted to the affected accounts".

It's just less transparency with more factors they won't tell you about, your EPC changing every single day. They have some great tools and it could be a great program if they ever found somebody who actually knew what they were doing.

There's stuff in there that's just odd like:

"Although we still have a 7 day cookie for sales, we no longer value all sales in a 7 day period equally. In general, sales that come toward the beginning of that period, close to the click, are judged more incremental and therefore valued higher than sales that come towards the end of that period. Please note an adjustment is made for auction listings and certain categories, e.g. motors, which may take longer to convert."

So what's the difference if somebody buys on day 1 or 2 compared to day 5 or 6? It's a sale, in the end it rings up the same.

But an edit. I will say as far as fraud and paying per click, that won't be a big problem I think because those clicks still need to result in sales or new signups or their EPC should drop and they'll probably get the boot if no real action ever occurs. Doesn't change the other problems with the new setup.

... I wish they would just leave shit alone and stop implementing all these major changes all the time.

Ditto.

Seems like every time I take on a new bill and need more stability (don't laugh) from ebay's program...something bad happens.

Ebay consistently seems content with their top producers' volume and could care less about effecting the livelihoods of their mid to lower level volume affiliates.

Any Amazon managers reading: Again, you can learn a lot from this program's threads and revamp your program to offer a sweeter deal than ebay to hard working ebay affiliates and maybe they'll focus their attention elsewhere.

Let us all not forget this ebay site started off as a hobby site never expecting to be what it has become. There is always the real possibility for an affiliate to become the head and not the tail and reverse engineer what ebay has done and create a better, more effective, more friendly, more efficient means of buying and selling online and then start your own affiliate program where YOU set the program terms having others promote for you!

Too big of a task for my britches right now - but it is possible with time, a little money, and a big advertising mouth online.

"God moves imperturbably, slowly, and with perfect organization. The only wise rate at which to live is God's rate. God get things done and they are done right and He does them without hurry. He neither fumes nor frets. He is peaceful and therefore efficient." - Norman Vincent Peale

I read through the FAQs, and they claim that quality affiliates will actually earn more. Their current system doesn't compensate for display ads, AdSense, PayPal fees, etc. The new one is supposed to look at total value.

Isn't this kind of an admittance that the current model, which was supposed to cut down on fraud and reward quality was a failure? If it was working, why change it. They're scrapping it for most affiliates. We'll see how it turns out. I know my current EPC and going to make notes of my previous months EPC and once the program rolls out, will compare them. So affiliates who have been on the network for awhile have plenty of data to compare the systems.

I'm sorry -- I have another newbie question. I just do this in my spare time.

It's just been the last year that my eBay earnings have continued to rise and it's actually money that I can use to pay some bills rather than just chump change. So I was in the middle of redesigning two websites specifically to display eBay code (while dumping other affiliate banners, etc). I've worked hours on it. The websites are built around the eBay code.

So is this new announcement saying they will still pay us from sales generated by our clicks, but that the payout might be less because we send less traffic to them than other affiliates?

Thanks in advance.

Last edited by DesignST; August 19th, 2009 at 01:09 PM.
Reason: mistake

I'm sorry -- I have another newbie question. I just do this in my spare time.

It's just been the last year that my eBay earnings have continued to rise and it's actually money that I can use to pay some bills rather than just chump change. So I was in the middle of redesigning two websites specifically to display eBay code (while dumping other affiliate banners, etc). I've worked hours on it. The websites are built around the eBay code.

So is this new announcement saying they will still pay us from sales generated by our clicks, but that the payout might be less because we send less traffic to them than other affiliates?

Thanks in advance.

Who knows, could be more, could be less. After you login to Ebay, look at your current EPC and it should be in that neighborhood. This month I'm making 15 cents a click. But let's say with the new model I start getting paid 8 cents a click. They just cut my income almost half. But maybe I make more. And with the new model, your EPC changes daily. Don't understand why they say wait for new metrics/reports to give you some idea of what you'll get paid under the new system when they already have EPC for you to look at. It should be in the neighborhood of what you're already getting per click. We can document this, get your current EPCs, make note of it and let's all compare them down the line. See how many go up, down or stay the same.

I read through the FAQs, and they claim that quality affiliates will actually earn more. Their current system doesn't compensate for display ads, AdSense, PayPal fees, etc. The new one is supposed to look at total value.

That would be nice if we could actually rely on what they "claim".

"God moves imperturbably, slowly, and with perfect organization. The only wise rate at which to live is God's rate. God get things done and they are done right and He does them without hurry. He neither fumes nor frets. He is peaceful and therefore efficient." - Norman Vincent Peale

Who knows, could be more, could be less. After you login to Ebay, look at your current EPC ..

My EPC is so much lower than yours. I'm probably sunk.
It was paying my utility bills and I was pretty happy with that. And now I've probably wasted all this time redesigning these sites and dumping other affiliates.

My EPC is so much lower than yours. I'm probably sunk.
It was paying my utility bills and I was pretty happy with that. And now I've probably wasted all this time redesigning these sites and dumping other affiliates.

Thanks for your quick reply though.

But if your own EPC with the new system is pretty much the same as the EPC with the current system, you'll end up getting paid pretty much what you're getting now. So we just have to wait to see and compare them. That's what I'm going to do today, what I think others should do as well. I'm going to get my EPC for each month and then also an overall and make a note of it. So I'll have over a year's worth of historical data. Then I'm going to compare that to whatever I'll get paid per click in the future. So then you'll know if you're getting paid more or less. So chart your EPCs, everybody already has that data in their account.

This month I'm getting 15 cents a click. Just ran a 3 month and it's 16 cents a click. Year to date 16 cents a click. For 2008 only, 14 cents a click.

So if they pay fairly it should be in the 15 cent neigborhood plus or minus a penny or two.

Mine's 16 cents per click ytd, up from 11 last year so hopefully that leaves me in pretty good shape, but I don't have all that much traffic volume so there's the chance they could say there's "not enough data" and give me some "default" per-click amount.

But if your own EPC with the new system is pretty much the same as the EPC with the current system, you'll end up getting paid pretty much what you're getting now. So we just have to wait to see and compare them. That's what I'm going to do today, what I think others should do as well. I'm going to get my EPC for each month and then also an overall and make a note of it. So I'll have over a year's worth of historical data. Then I'm going to compare that to whatever I'll get paid per click in the future. So then you'll know if you're getting paid more or less. So chart your EPCs, everybody already has that data in their account.

This month I'm getting 15 cents a click. Just ran a 3 month and it's 16 cents a click. Year to date 16 cents a click. For 2008 only, 14 cents a click.

So if they pay fairly it should be in the 15 cent neigborhood plus or minus a penny or two.

Trust, they have clearly stated they will use a hidden calculation based upon many factors and adjust the EPC/PPC. Lots of factors including past performance, sales transactions (which you will no longer be allowed to see), unpaid items, etc. In addition to other elements that we aren't allowed to know about.

If it was as simply as apply your current EPC to the new PPC then, yes, you would be making the exact same amount of money. However, it's clear that EPN wants further control to be able to lower your revenue further. There are too many "fine tunes" they can do to pay you even less.

There is one side note for those that send a lot of clicks. If your EPC falls below $.03 you will be removed from the program basically. Though they have said they will lower your PPC as well. It's clear that is a number not to fall below without dire actions taking place.

I'm changing a few of my EPN listings......
Anyone know what the "business model de jour" is tomorrow?
hehe
We won't know how this will work out till we get some months with the new plan, but I believe lots of affiliates will be keeping an eye toward Adsense now.

Somebody asked if they can assume that the new EPC payout will be same or average of what they've been getting:

Somebody asked:
"Ex: If I have sent 100 clicks MTD, and earned $10, is it safe to assume I will continue averaging .10 cents per click?"

Ebay rep:
"It's actually not that simple, so this could be misleading. We're going to provide reports starting next week to give everyone a preview of your EPCs."

That's some kind of BS. I went over as soon as they left CJ, so over a year now. So if you've been pretty consistent with your EPC in all that time, have all kinds of historical data, why would it change much at all? How could that be misleading? I have the same sites, same traffic sources, so it should be pretty much the same. If it was fair.

"Yes that's correct. Your EPC will be calculated at campaign level and rolled up to program level, so one low quality campaign, amongst many high camapigns will not result in you being terminated, although it may dilute your overall EPC."

I need to read that some more but if it means we're going to get paid some overall per click, all our campaigns combined, that's nonsense as well. And let's use the current model as an example. Something I had a problem with and actually went back and forth with an ebay rep, about 5 emails.

I was getting $28 an ACRU from the start, for many months. Always was listed as Medium. Then one month, after the month was over, I noticed a big drop in what I was going to get paid and found out my ACRU went down to $10 a pop. Here's the thing tho and I'm using my own Ebay stats:

95% of my traffic was coming from 1 site, 1 campaign and ebay listed it as Medium. 95%.

The other 5% was Low.

But somehow from that, they said the Overall was low.

That makes no sense whatsoever. Historically was at Medium, 95% of past traffic and the current month was from that site, that campaign and they listed that as Medium. So how do you get a low out of that? They could never answer that because there was no logical answer to that besides the program is screwy. And scrapping it pretty much admits it was. Probably the same people working on this one. So they went on their own like in April of last year. So in 16 months we started with one system, went to another the current and now going to another one. 3 systems in 16 months. Pretty inept.

I will say it is nice from reading that ebay thread that there aren't as many Koolaid affiliates this time around. A lot of good points are being brought up. But the responses from ebay are something else.